


Knock Knock

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bandits & Outlaws, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, Trick or Treat: Trick, Trick or Treating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-05 16:49:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: The Devil had come for him and his family, demanding a treat and threatening a trick.  He gave in, obviously.





	Knock Knock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



They came in the night, silently.  Come morning he would be unable to find his dogs, adding to the mystery of how they had come with no warning.  He just remembered going to sleep on a chilly night after a long days work, glad to have saved so many provisions for winter.

He woke up as they dragged him from bed and struck him while he resisted and his wife and children wailed.  They were furry and scaly, smelled of earth and meat, and they struck him and dragged him out; he blacked out as one kicked him, only to awaken on his knees, held by two of them.  His wife and children were screaming behind him.

She was in front of him.

She stood, a tall, muscular woman; legs covered in fur.  A pair of antlers were affixed to, or protruded from her wild mane of black hair.  A necklace of teeth and bone and tongues was the only adornment on her chest.  Her bare skin was red in the flickering light of the lantern she held in her left hand, her right held a long-handled pitchfork over her shoulder.

He’d seen pictures in that old book his mother had, the one from before the war.  The horns, the furry legs.  He thought Devil was supposed to be a man.  “Oh g-God…”

He was forced to bow prostrate as she he spun the pitchfork around in her grasp and thrust it at the ground beside his head.  The end tine scraped a line in his cheek and he howled, his family joining in.  He gasped as she dropped down to a crouch, running a hand under his chin.  Her lips parted in a wide grin, and she asked “Trick or treat?”

Her smile was bright and wide against her red face in the flickering light of her lantern.  He couldn’t look at her face anymore, turning his head.  His vision, blurred by fatigue and the beating, took too long to recognize the holes in her lantern.   Two holes on level with one another, one below them and located in the center, and a much wider one.  Eyes, nose, and mouth.

He quickly turned his head to the ground, until he felt her hand against his face, a long sharp nail scraping the cut she’d given him.

“Trick or treat.” She asked again.  The hint of playfulness was gone, only a voice as sharp as a knife.  He mumbled again before the backhand she gave shut him up before and she repeated “Trick. Or. Treat.”

The screaming behind him grew louder and he turned; one of the devil’s own, something of burlap and ropes and soaked in something dark was holding a torch, lowering it while another held his son in its path.  The devil repeated.  “Trick?”

He babbled.  They had extra food, some knives, provisions for winter.  They could take it, the Devil could have everything he had in the world as long as she didn’t take his family.  He begged and pleaded and prayed and didn’t stop until long after the monsters went down to his home and thrashed around, only the Devil and two of her helpers keeping guard.

They could’ve left no one, he was too scared to even think of resisting.

When her helpers came, arms full of food and tools, one of the monsters, a man missing so much of his face, grabbed his wife to haul her to her feet until the Devil shouted.  “They gave us treats.  No need for tricks.”

The thing unceremoniously dumped his wife to the field and cringed, apparently fearful of his master.  She dropped down to a crouch again, directed his attention to her, and said "Happy Halloween".

In the morning, he had gone to neighboring farms, hearing the same story from the Devlins and the McCalls.  But the Jacksons... the farm was burned, the bodies were mutilated, and everything was dead on the farm; a curious stack of bones outside teh front of the Jackson home.  It might've been looted anyways, not that he could tell from the wreckage.  It wasn't until Old Jack Devlin had caught up that he learned that stack of bones was a written word.

TRICK.

He thanked the Lord they had been spared when he returned to his family, bruised, cut, and aching, but alive. They had suffered, unquestionably.  But there were enough provisions to eke by in the coming winter.  They’d have to be more careful though, had to save more.

Because after making a deal with the Devil, he was sure she’d be back for another. 

* * *

Lily leaned over the basin, bracing herself, and splashed water in her face.  It was _fucking cold_.  She didn’t think she’d ever be warm again after last night… she thought it would be intimidating maybe, barechested and holding a flaming gourd.  And maybe she was, there were plenty of people who buckled, but by the end of the night she had been _chattering_ “T-t-trick o-or t-t-treat.”

She heard Rock repeating that stutter on the road home, after she hunkered down in the truck next to all of the loot, under a pile of blankets.  Fucking asshole.  She’d wait a while before coming up with some payback—nothing too dangerous, couldn’t afford to waste manpower—but assigning her something unpleasant to do.  Maybe something in the East, in the wetlands with all the leeches. 

She looked own at the red water, noticing all the overflow on the tile floor.  The paint had been various berries mostly, although after a few farmers chose not to be generous and the gang had finished playing their tricks on them, she was sure she’d had a second coat of red on by the end of the night.  As she looked down, she heard footsteps coming towards the door.

“What’s the haul, Stan?” She said, eyes not leaving the red pool in the basin.  He was late coming in, because he had to make sure nobody noticed the _humble trader_ with an ear to the ground walking in to the building a gang had recently taken over.  

“We won’t have to go raiding again for _months_ , Boss.” He said smiling.  “Got plenty of everything; scrap, tools, food, moonshine.  Left enough so the people who treated us can be bled for it all again.  It was a good run.”

She knew that her team had tremendous luck hitting up the southernmost farms.  But if every group had similar luck they could just hunker down, patch up their vehicles, and plan for a big move come the spring thaw.  Still, a good haul meant nothing if they lost any more troops—war with the Claw Lakes Pack had thinned their numbers, and that and the swarm wiping out the farms they usually extorted forced them to find new marks to steal from.  “Any casualties?”

“Few split lips and cuts, nothing serious.”  He said, boots clicking on the tile floor as he approached. He tossed something at her, round and green. 

“We hit that Apple Farm?”  That had been a _maybe_ on their plans, there were a lot of dogs.  Whoever did this was definitely getting a bonus—the swarm had decimated what rumors had held were the last apple trees.  Hearing that rumor was false was great.

“Orchard.” He corrected, dickish grin forming as she flipped him off with her free hand, too busy sinking her teeth into the fruit to muster a response.  The grin disappeared when he added “Word is that the few local gangs around collected tithes from the farms we hit up.  I know you wanted to hunker down, but…”

Going on the run again wasn’t in her plans.  The long retreat westward had been rough, and she’d heard whispers that the gang was thinking of getting new management, which only increased when she started demanding that they begin gathering materials and starting to make costumes.  They lost a few more men when she decided a demonstration was necessary to reassert the pecking order, and she had gambled everything on last night.  The payoff was needed to encourage her gang, but it also meant they wanted to stick around, not run.

“Boss?” Stan asked, not breaking eye contact.  He could see she was planning something. 

“Well… might be fun if a traveling merchant spread the word.” She said, tossing a leather jacket over her shoulders.  “Hint to the Rich clan that the Bisons had the bright idea to play dress up; the Wings that it was the Riches.  Obviously, such a flagrant disregard for each others’ property rights would merit retaliation…”

“One last trick?” Stan asked, grinning.  Letting all the other idiots waste their bullets on each other both saved their own ammo and made it easier to set down some real roots.

Reading up on all those pre-End traditions had turned out to be a lot more fruitful than she initially thought.  “One last trick.”

**Author's Note:**

> The tag "Female Post-Apocalyptic Gang Leader Who Is Way Too Enthusiastic About Halloween" lends itself very well to humor, but I thought the idea of it played seriously, and he rand her cohorts going on an evil, murderous Scooby Doo hoax to steal everything they could had legs. But it was still silly enough I thought "What would a sexy devil Halloween costume be in the Post-Apocalypse?".


End file.
